A Cheshire East Councillor for Wilmslow East, David Jefferay, is looking for help from residents to get action from Cheshire East Highways on a residential road in Wilmslow that he says is unsafe and urgently needs repairing.
Cllr David Jefferay is calling for Cedarway, off Fulshaw Park, to be resurfaced. This is a small cul-de-sac of 8 houses and the road surface has all but gone as a result of years of no maintenance.
Cllr Jefferay said "Although, many of the town's roads have potholes, I believe Cedarway is on a completely different level. There is no surface for there to be potholes in, the surface is not safe for pedestrians or cyclists yet the residents still have to pay their council tax.
"Its condition was raised with me when I was standing for town council in 2014 but, as a town councillor, there was little I could do because Cheshire East is the Highways Authority. It was raised with me again when I stood for Cheshire East last year because nothing had been done and the condition had further deteriorated.
"It was one of the first issues I raised following the elections in May and I was told that it had been identified for inclusion in this year's work programme. When I chased for an update a few months later I was told that it had been removed from the programme due to other roads being higher priority.
"It was at this point that I started looking into and learning about the criteria for prioritisation."
When deciding which roads require treatment the condition of the roads is firstly assessed and then the following other factors are taken into account:
- Engineering feedback from Local Highway Officers, Highway Maintenance Teams and Capital Delivery Team Highways teams.
- Number of carriageway repairs recorded on each road, identifying roads which are showing deterioration and high revenue repairs.
- The needs, priorities and use of the section of highway for all users (motorised and non-motorised).
- Level 2 patching works undertaken in the previous year.
- Local importance of Road (Strategic Route etc.).
- Claims Number of carriageway claims recorded on the road.
- Customer service requests (Confirm Enquiries, Petitions, Newspaper/Radio/TV articles.
Cllr David Jefferay added "Cedarway, from an engineering perspective, is clearly in a state of disrepair and this is acknowledged by highways and even the Highways Portfolio Holder, Cllr Brian Roberts, who visited the road and subsequently added his weight to my request for it to be prioritised.
"The problem is that it does not score highly on the other criteria; no work has ever been done on it so it is not recognised as a problem and it is a small cul-de-sac so it is not heavily used and that is not going to change. I cannot see how it will ever score highly enough for it to be prioritised.
"I have therefore arrived at the conclusion that the only criterion that the residents and I can influence is the number of customer service requests. I am therefore encouraging the residents to actively complain and raise awareness of the state of the road.
"Please can I therefore ask that anyone else who lives on Cedarway, anyone who has visited or used Cedarway, anyone who has passed Cedarway or even anyone who has seen it on a map, submits a highway report (every day if you have time) to raise the number of Customer Service Requests.
Comments
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Just a thought..........l
I thought this was an adopted highway and the responsibility of the local authority to maintain and repair. I thought that parts of the council tax precept covered highway maintenance and repair. I thought that you had to have the appropriate authority to carry out work on the public highway.
Does anybody know how I can confirm these?
Alan Brough, thank you for your concern. I do have a big dog for protection but I will start varying my travel routes and checking under my car.